


Distant Thunder

by rosncrntz



Category: The Man in the High Castle (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Chance Meeting, Conversations, Gen, Guns, John Smith needs to sort his life out, Juliana is so kind and deserves better, Set in 2x10, Sort of Obergruppana but not really, added scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 22:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10625997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosncrntz/pseuds/rosncrntz
Summary: Juliana Crain has killed George Dixon when a familiar face appears. She has killed a man. She could not kill another. Set in 2x10. Added scene.





	

Sick, crying, her gun stuffed into her coat pocket now weighing her down with its leaden clunk, Juliana took a turn through the back alley when her shoes lost their grip on the street – wet as it was from the rain – and she scraped the ground on collision. Without the strength to cry out, her noise was guttural, mixed with her sobs and the phlegm in her throat, and her hands scattered on the ground. A spidery pain shot cold into her leg, and she glanced down to see fine red scratches down her calf. Swallowing, she took her bloodied hands and pushed herself to a kneel, turning her head up in the white daylight, and letting her dizzy eyes settle on a figure in black.

“Miss Crain.”

She had not heard an approach for her ears were swimming and her eyes, muddied with tears and unclear in her grief, could hardly recognise the man before her. No facial features were evident but she knew who this was from the broad shoulders cloaked in ink. Obergruppenführer John Smith: always one step ahead. How did he get here? How did he find her? Was he alone? God, she hoped he was alone. His face, gaunt and violent, moved to observe every detail. He had seen the body in the alley behind Juliana Crain. He had seen Juliana Crain and knew her immediately. Her eyes scoured him desperately. She had been crying. Not only that, she had been in a fight. Her body heaved and she was bleeding. John could see red marks that would shadow themselves into bruises. Her neck.

This scene was troubling.

“Stay where you are.”

He had no weapon drawn, no weapon visible, and yet Juliana knew better than to disobey him. She knew that, by trying to run, she was signing her own death warrant. He had a gun on his person, of course, though she could not see it, and it would be draw in a split second and the trigger would be pulled without a second thought. She placed her hands on the back of her head as if by the instinct of a creature bred in captivity, knowing its master, and knowing how to be obedient.

John moved towards the body, thickly spread on the ground. He was face down. His body was still warm. Juliana watched him and it was at this moment she was forced to look at George. It made bile clog in her lungs. She felt powerful and sickened. John lifted the body with his boot, like one would lift a stone to see what urchins dwell in the dark, and she could see that his face was caramelised by the blood – sticking in strands from the gravel to his face. And it was so pale, already. As if smeared with the ash in a fireplace, streaked with the purple of bloodless veins. His mouth hung open in a ring of his own gore, drying and cracking on his lips. His hand lay in a weak fist. Never to move again.

John seemed to falter. A pulse in his composure. A quick tilt of his skull, and he turned back to Juliana who was still knelt, small, on the ground. She had the pallor of a woman who would be sick. Her gaze flitted from the ground to the sky to the grey expanses of wall to the grime from the street, just to avoid the blood and the body. He saw the strain of a weight in her coat pocket. He saw, clearly, how her hands trembled. He knew, immediately, what she had done.

“Give me the gun, Juliana.” She hated hearing him use that name. It was Frank’s name, Joe’s name, her mother’s name, Trudy’s name: not his. She knew why he did it: to charm her, coax her like a timid animal into trusting him, into feeling for him, into believing him. He approached her and descended to her level, where he reached out a hand. It lay there in the air, expectant. Firm. It was not the charm that made her yield and hand over her weapon, but the fear. He used both to crippling effect and his great advantage, almost in equal measure. She took the gun in her hand and almost as if bewitched she let it fall to him. It was helpless and pathetic, but strength was lost to her. His steely gaze was ice and bullet-holes; the smoke rising on an abandoned battlefield, ash from gunpowder and the roar of plane engines. His gaze was something much bigger than her, and far more powerful. He stood up. “Why did you kill George Dixon?” he asked. Plainly. The question brought a lump up to choke her airway. She never wanted to _kill_ anyone. But, looking at that lump crumpled on the street, she could not deny that she had killed a man. She could not deny it to herself. She could not deny it to John Smith.

“He had a tape,” she gulped. She noticed a flinch in John’s left eye. Almost imperceptible, and controlled almost as soon as it had occurred, but she had seen it. In the daylight, metallic and blinding. He spoke calmly, but there was a force to his words that had not been there before,

“What tape?”

 _He would kill her._ If he knew that Thomas had spoken to her, and if he knew her reply, he would kill her.

“John, I-“

“What was on the tape?”

Her eyes were threatening to spill the tears that forced themselves on to her. She battled to keep them. She could hardly breathe.

“The CCTV at the apartment complex. I was-”

“I’ve heard enough.”

He had been so quick to stop her. He was agitated. She knew it. She could see it, though he tried to hide it. He was a lion with an injury – she would not dare test her luck, but she could see him declining. His lips pursed to prevent their trembling. His knuckles clenched to stop them shaking. His eyes hardened as not to show their weakness.

“You’ve seen it?”

He did not allow her the satisfaction of a reply. Juliana was more clever than she let on, he knew that. And John knew that she saw through him. But he kept his dignity. He bound it close to him, and kept it with the steely gaze and the firm gait. She could not prove what he chose not to admit.

“I said I’ve heard enough.”

Empathy in her kind heart spurred her on.

“John, I did not mean to interfere, I promise. Thomas came to me and-“

“I do not need you to explain yourself,” he stated, harsh. “Do you have the tape?” he asked. She did. She took it out of her pocket and gave it to him. He took it. He seemed almost moved by it. But then he stiffened. “The Resistance could have used that tape to destroy me.” He scoffed through the thunder of his heartbeat. “You should have let them.”

“Thomas… he’s…” Juliana’s voice wavered. She did not know what to say. She did not know which words would spare her life. The ground was cracking beneath her feet. The earth was falling out. The truth would do, she thought. She would tell him the truth. “He’s a sweet boy. He is a sweet boy, John. I couldn’t stand by and let them…” Her voice was just air. John understood. It hurt him. He felt himself weaken. He hated himself. He hated her more. He hated the blood in his own veins. He wanted to see her blood spill. He knew he should kill her, or take her prisoner, torture her, see her bleed, or have her executed. And yet she had been merciful to his only son. Above the Reich, above himself, above it all, was his family. The Nazi would have killed her. The father could not.

He owed her a debt as dear as his own life.

“You should leave,” he said, looking back down the alley. There was not a soul present: save Juliana’s and his, agonised, and George Dixon’s, quickly escaping him. Juliana’s breath caught in something like a gasp. _He was letting her go?_ “Don’t act so surprised, Miss Crain, I know you’ve been working with the Resistance. You’re only alive because you’re useful to me and, whilst you’re still useful to me, you’ll carry on living.”

“Useful?” Something about her, for a few moments, crucial and real and beating the street like a throbbing pulse beneath the city, told her not to be afraid of the man before her. Just a man, after all. She had killed a man. A man just like him. She hated it, but she took it, and made the guilt hers. And, now, knowing she was _useful_ , she felt a blossoming immortality. She was ivory, and he could not hurt her. “Are you using me to blackmail Joe?”

“Joe Blake,” he replied, almost teasing her with the information he held, “is in Berlin. I haven’t spoken to him for weeks.”

“And yet you still think I’m useful.”

He did not move at all quickly, but the movement of his hand to silence her was so decisive, so well-judged, so irrevocable, that her lungs collapsed and with it all the air was pushes from her chest. No violence, just a raised hand. It tolled her.

“It is not your place to ask questions.” He pulled her gun out, again, and Juliana flickered. Her blossoming immortality wilted and she suddenly felt very small and very powerless in the shadow of the Obergruppenführer. She felt young. “You should leave. Now.”

Her powerlessness brought out a desperation in her which forced her to beg. She felt vile. Pathetic. She felt herself quiver and her blood turn cold and milky. She felt naked, but she had no other option,

“Everyone’s looking for me, John: the Japanese, the Resistance. If I were that useful to you, you’d help me.” He was silent as the distant thunder and hard and unforgiving as stone. “John, please.”

She had imagined something soft that was not there.

“Don’t overestimate your importance, Miss Crain.” He handed the gun back to her, crouching down to her once again. But, before rising, he turned the gaze to her and something behind the hawkish glare was tender. Genuine. There was a trace of something inexplicably and irreversibly human. Slowly, but surely, and spoken as softly as could be, he said, “I wish you luck.” He rose. He turned. And he left her bleeding.

He trusted that she would not shoot him. She could do it. Right in that moment. With the adrenaline doping her. Raise her gun just as he walked away. As she had done to George. Only moments before. She had done it then, she could do it now. It would be so easy. So easy. Just as he walked away. Raise. Squeeze the trigger. Only the slightest tense of the muscle. Only a second. Deafened by the sound. And then.

But she did not.

**Author's Note:**

> Finally fulfilling a request, this is my first TMITHC fic, and I've been a bit nervous about approaching it. But, here we are. I hope you've enjoyed it, and I'm open to writing some more High Castle fics so feel free to send me prompts!


End file.
